Backup Buddy Plugin – A Dream Come True
If you have read my blog, attended my workshops, or even casaully discussed WordPress with me, you know my feelings about backing up your files. Yes, most servers and hosts do it routinely, and yours might be one of them. But I don’t like to rely on them.
I always recommend using WP DB Backup plugin for your database which it basically all of your content — pages and posts. But what about your other WordPress files. And all the media you have uploaded? Yes, you can back those up usually using an FTP client, but maybe you don’t have the know how or the time.
I know what you are thinking.
This sounds like an ad.
Well, in a way maybe it is. But PlugInBuddy.com from iThemes, has come up with Backup Buddy. It’s great. And it backs up everything.
A side note. I was concerned the otther day when a client that I was doing consulting told me another “so called” WordPress expert told her to just use the export tool, and that will backup everything. Not! What are these people anyway, giving away wrong info!
Yes, I am an affiliate for this, a few bucks in my pocket. And yes, it’s not a free plugin. But damn, it’s great. And well worth the money!
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So Many Choices, So Little Time – Which Theme is the Best?
Whether it’s from clients, or attendees of my workshops, I often get asked, “What theme do you think is the best?” Wow, now that’s a loaded question!
Why do I get asked that so often? And is there really an answer? To be honest, no.
What is happening is there are a lot of WordPress “so-called experts” out there who have found one particular theme they like, or a series of them from a certain theme developer. Why the “experts” decide on pushing it could be several different reasons:
- They have learned a particular theme inside and out, and have decided it’s too much work to explore other themes.
- They have a vested interest in it, which may be financial.
- They bought the developer’s licence and fso it costs the nothing to offer the “free premium theme” as an incentive to hire them to create your blog or website.
- They feel the theme has worked miracles for them, and believe it will do the same for you.
- They are just simply biased and too stubborn to budge an inch.
Now I’m not saying this is bad, or that the themes they recommend won’t do the job. It’s just the limitations set upon the client. And although they may think that their “selected” theme is the greatest, it’s only their opinion, and doesn’t necessarily mean that they understand your needs.
So back to my question and my answer. I use and recommend a large variety of themes for my clients. The commission I get on an affilate ad, or the hype that may come from big name bloggers, don’t play into my decision. Why? Because finding a theme that will work for you is very important to me.
When searching for a theme, think of everything you want it to do, plus all those forseeable needs down the road. Talk to you developer and ask the hard questions. Ask around. See who else is using that theme and find out what they were able to do. If you find a theme that has been highly customized, be prepared to either dig in yourself or have someone do it for you. And if you don’t find a theme that will do it all for you, make sure what you settle on will still make you happy.
Remember, no one theme does it all. At least, not yet…
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Protect your wp-content folder if using a CPanel hosting account
If you are hosting with someone like Bluehost.com, Hostgator.com or any other host with WordPress installations on a cPanel.
Case in point. Let’s say I know www.thisdomain.com is using WordPress. So I simply go in and type www.thisdomain.com/wp-content. An index page will come up like this in your browser window..
And if I was to click on 2010/ I would get access to all images uploaded the this WordPress default file. So I could easily download everything they have uploaded to their site. Sometimes you can do this to the plugin and theme directories as well. Or if I typed in www.thisdomain.com/wp-content/uploads the same thing will happen.
This can be a very big security risk if you offer subscriptions, paid material or other information that you don’t want easily grabbed.
How to solve this…
Sign into your hosting account, and click on your cPanel. At the very bottom, go into the “Index Manager” and select No Indexing for your site and it’s directories, or if you choose, just certain directories. If you don’t, users will easily be able to rip content, plugin and theme information from your site.
It will either go to a 404 page not found, or directory not found.
As always, with WordPress, be safe!
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Your Old Blog Posts Aren’t Dead. They’re Just Sleeping.
Post by Judy Dunn
We’ve been tricked. All of us.
That freshly baked, piping hot, sweet-smelling, pie called Original Content grabbed us by the collar. Assaulted our nostrils. Made us salivate.
This pie was made just for me. It’s fresh and juicy. No one else has had a bite. I want the first piece.
We bloggers know this pie well. We should, because we baked it.
As we create the content pie that becomes a new blog post, someone is standing over our shoulder. Maybe it’s that Internet marketer who sends us their weekly newsletter. Or that hot-shot author whose book, “Create Original Content or Die,” is on the bestseller list. And they are whispering:
“Say something new! ”
“Write with your own voice!”
“Be original. Be Cree-A-tive.”
Why Bringing Back an Old Blog Post Can Be a Good Thing
Attention spans are murderously short on the Web. Plus, you are always collecting new readers.
So you have your memory-challenged regular readers. And you have a brand new audience that has never read your old posts. That means that with just a little tweaking (or a lot, if it makes sense), you can get more google juice.
Of course, if you just start republishing old posts randomly, without choosing carefully, you’ll just be rehashing stale, boring ideas. But done right, you’ll get a surge in traffic and, very possibly, some new subscribers.
5 Steps to Waking Up an Old Post
- Revisit your older posts often. Your goal here is to find which posts were the most popular. If you see a certain post being viewed again and again, this is prime content to bring back. Sometimes it will be a post that had a lot of reader comments and sometimes not. Pay particular attention if the referring site (where the reader came from) is Google. If people are searching for help with a certain problem and they keep finding your blog post, you have a winner and you should consider republishing it.
- Look at your title, sub-heads and formatting with a fresh eye. Reworking the title just a little bit could make your post even more popular in a Google search. An added benefit: Google will look at it with fresh eyes, too. Google Analytics even tells you what terms people were using in their search when they found your post. Adding intriguing sub-heads also helps—to break up the text and draw the eye to the important parts of your post. And check your spacing. Do paragraph breaks often to help readers skim and scan. Sometime my paragraphs are just one sentence long, especially if I want to add emphasis to a thought.
- Consider updating the content. Your most popular posts got to be that way for a reason. If you can add new content, or rewrite, you’ll capture more readers, people who wanted to know more about what you were talking about. So think about the new things you could add.
- Add new tags. A tag is merely a keyword or category used to describe the topic of your post. Tags are indexed by Google and Technorati, so someone doing a Google search is more likely to come across your posts. Revisit your tags and think about whether adding a few new ones might help more people find your post.
- Think about adding a new image or two. If you are like me, you didn’t give much thought to images when you first started blogging. But images can be very powerful, hitting the part of the brain that triggers memory and emotions. The result: You attract more readers—and keep them engaged in your post. For more advice on what the right image can do for your post, read 5 Ways the Right Photo Can Get You More Blog Readers. For some good sources of photos, see my recent post, How to Find Spectacular Free and Low-Cost Images for Your Blog Post.
What about you? Do you republish old blog posts? Do you think it’s a good strategy?
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8 Recent Thoughts on WordPress
Hey, you may already know this, but WordPress is my life. Yes, I work with it on a daily basis. And no, I don’t know everything. But I enjoy finding those solutions to problems I have yet to conquer. So, just for the heck of it, here are eight thoughts I am having right now on WordPress as I sit here.
- Themes are a constant challenge. Their coding and CSS isn’t always obvious. Still convinced it’s worth paying for one.
- Permalinks are great. But if you move a site, and you suddenly start getting 404 errors on all of your pages, except your homepage, it can be a permalink problem. Simply go in and reset to default, save, then reset your custom permalink. That may just solve the problem.
- Bluehost is still my favorite hosting site. Three issues this week, all resolved within 15 minutes via the 24/7 chat.
- Nothing more gratifying then helping someone on Twitter solve a WordPress issue by sending them to a blog post I did.
- Looking forward to the WordPress workshop I’ll be presenting tomorrow, WordPress and the 3 Bears – Themes, Plugins and Widgets.
- Blogging is not dead.
- Cringe when other so-called WordPress developers and “experts” say you can create yourself an awesome online presence in just a few hours.
- Still don’t like the over-used cliches rockstar or sucks in any kind of reference to WordPress, or as a matter of fact, anything in life.
So, a bit of meandering, but just imagine what all my thoughts are in a day’s time!
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Using WordPress in Your URL
Just an FYI, did you know that it is in violation of the WordPress trademark to use “WordPress” in your url? You can see here what they say in on their site, but in a nutshell…
It’s best to use yourdomainwp.com instead. For example if you have a site called WordPress Themes, your URL should be wpthemes. And if you already have a URL with WordPress in it, they say:
“If you already have a domain with “WordPress” in it, redirecting it to the “wp” equivalent is fine, just as long as the main one users see and you promote doesn’t contain “WordPress.”
But I still see this abused all the time. Have you? It’s important to remember what this great open source software is giving us, free of charge.
Also, you will find many sites, although they don’t have WordPress in the url, they have it in the site name. This is okay to do. But what you shouldn’t do is make it look like it’s affiliated with the official WordPress site. Also, do not take chunks of text from the WordPress site and drop it onto your site as if it’s your own copy. I see this done and it really irks me. This is copyrighted information.
What you need to do is note that copy has been taken from the WordPress site, by giving them credit. And most important, if you do have WordPress in the name of your site, please put a disclaimer at the bottom of the site that it is in no way affiliated with WordPress.com or WordPress.org.
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WordPress 2.9 – Update Success
This is the second day since WordPress 2.9 has officially been released. Normally, I wait a couple of weeks to upgrade. But this time I took the dive and the update went through seamlessly. In fact, I have seen a lot of the same results via Twitter. Sounds like a lot of the bugs were worked out in beta. Way to go WordPress!
Of course, I did backup all my files and database just in case!
I will come back and post any plugin or widget conflicts as I hear them.
And how did your experience go?
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Get Rid of That &%#$ Admin User!
If you have been using WordPress for very long, you know that within current versions there are several updates, eg. 2.8, 2.8.1, 2.8.2, 2.8.3, etc. Reason for this is mostly security issues, so it’s critical to do those updates. But another simple security measure is to get rid of that “Admin” username that comes as a default when you install WordPress. And it’s so easy!
Simply go to the Users Menu and choose “Add New”.
This window will open.
Now create your new user name. There are three things to remember here. 1) Make sure you give your new user name an “administrator” role. 2) You cannot use the email you have listed in your “admin” user, so use another one that you have. (you can always change this later). And 3) create a strong password by using a mix of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols, etc.
Once you have saved it, log out of your dashboard and sign up using your new username and password. If you are able to login, go back to your list of users, and you can now safely delete the “admin”. But make sure of this. You will see the question, “What should be done with posts and links owned by this user?” At this point make sure you select your new user name. Otherwise, everything you have done previously will disappear.
When deleted, you can now change your email back to the one you were originally were using.
Be safe!
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Everything Plus the Kitchen Sink
Through my WordPress workshops, I’ve come to realize something. I’m doing things right. I don’t ever assume that those simple little techniques or hidden gems are obvious to everyone. Or that the seasoned WordPress user will become bored with the picky details I cover.
So where am I going with this?
It’s the aha moments…
There are a couple of features when creating a post or page in WordPress, that I have found not everyone knows.
Sure, you may be setting there, after reading it, saying, “no way.” But remember, not everyone is comfortable with technology. And for many, pushing an unknown buttom on your computer screen, well, that’s just damn scary. Who knows what will happen?
So, maybe you have just opened a WordPress.com account. Or you went as far as installing it on your own server. You are ready to do your first post. You click on “new post,” and the “compose a post” page opens.
Wow. Cool. Look at all those tools.
You start typing to your heart’s content. Things are going smoothly So far, so good.
But wait, didn’t someone tell you that you could highlight a word by giving it a different color? And wasn’t there some kind of tool to indent the paragraph you just did? Am I going nuts?
Ah, but you aren’t. It’s only because you didn’t click on the “kitchen sink.”
And, presto, yes, there is a whole other line of tools.
Now, you have suddenly realized that you were victim of the “kitchen sink.”
Don’t feel bad. Sometimes WordPress, when first opened, has only the one line as a default. I have heard from attendees of my workshops, that they have gone months without knowing this. No one ever told them. And heck, they were reluctant to start pushing buttons randomly. But remember, when doing a post or page, any stylization can be undone!
So, that brings me to another point. That box in the upper right corner where you preview posts, save drafts, publish—all that good stuff.
Again, at my workshops, I simple make people be aware of the fact that they can “schedule” to publish a post or page. Again, I see a few eyes open wider. A few more aha moments.
No, you don’t have to get up at 4 am to publish that post. Yes, you can write two or three posts, schedule them and enjoy your vacation.
So what’s the freakin’ point here? The WordPress dashboard is littered with great features. Some are more obvious then others.
Explore! Don’t be afraid to push a button. See what it has to offer you. Save as a draft, preview a page. And then when you are ready, hit “publish.”
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WordPress 2.9 Teaser
Okay, just a quick post to let you know a couple of features to expect in 2.9. I just uploaded the beta version and hope to come back soon with more to share.
THE TRASH CAN – When you delete a post, page, category, comment, or any bit of content, it is moved to the Trash where you can decide whether to pull it back at a later date.
IMAGE EDITOR – ALTHOUGH SIMPLE… Image editing will allow bloggers to crop, scale and rotate images from right within WordPress.
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